Rebranding isn’t just a strategy for businesses. It’s an even hotter trend in geography. I’mtold that 20 countries have changed their names in just the last decade. One can only admirethe zeal for self-reinvention that turns the Czech Republic in Czechia or Burma into Myanmar.But, honestly, the map name-changers ought to do more consumer market research. Lookat poor Iceland—just imagine what it could do with a more tourist-friendly name? They oughtto a negotiate a trademark exchange with Greenland, which isn't fully leveraging its superiorbrand. Honestly, why don’t nations conduct a few focus groups before coming up with thesedepressing names? The folks in Trivandrum would never have changed their name toThiruvananthapuram if they had only talked to a few travel agents first.

But the biggest success story in geographic rebrandingcan be found in those pesky swamps. Once feared fortheir malarial atmosphere, muggy weather, and peskymosquitoes, they have put all that behind in a gloriousrebranding. The swamps have become wetlands, andsummon up images of pristine ecosystems and colorfulindigenous flora and fauna. Now that is how geographicalrebranding ought to work.

But no one has told the proprietors of Swamplandia!, astruggling tourist attraction in the Florida wetlands. TheBigtree family like to think of Swamplandia! as an excitingtheme park, but there’s little here to interest touristsbesides a hokey museum that displays items relating tothe family’s make-believe Native American roots (GrandpaSawtooth was originally named Ernest Schedrach andcame from Ohio), and a lot of alligators. The real draw isalligator wrestling, an athletic exhibition only a step above(or perhaps below) bullfighting and cock-fighting in status.

Swamplandia lays claim to one genuine star attraction, a prepossessing woman namedHilola Bigtree, Sawtooth’s daughter-in-law and the greatest of the female alligator wrestlers.When she dies of cancer, the theme park loses its audience. But the Bigtree family alsoloses its cohesion and sense of direction. Poor old Grandpa is sent to a home forthe elderly in a converted boat. Hilola’s husband starts spending more and more time on themainland, involved in mysterious and seemingly futile plans to reinvent Swamplandia!. Theirthree children cope in even stranger ways. The oldest, son Kiwi, plans to leave Swamplandiabehind, go to school, and maybe earn some money that can help the rest of his family. Hissister Osceola begins talking to dead people via the Ouija board and occult trances. Theyoungest Bigtree, thirteen-year-old Ava is a Swamplandia! loyalist, who stays around thealligators and has dreams of becoming a great gator wrestler and carrying on her mother’slegacy. Who knows, she might even draw audiences back to their swamp.

In the opening pages, Karen Russell seems intent on turning this amusing premise into agrand comic novel, an endearing mix of Tarzan of the Apes, Gilligan’s Island and Family Ties.But readers are advised to strap on their seat belts, because the tone of this book will twist andturn with the rapidity of a real theme-park ride. Before you’re done, you will encounter adark psychological terrain more akin to Deliverance and Cape Fear, but also bits and piecesof other narrative styles.

The most powerful section of Swamplandia! is aConrad-esque historical seafarer’s narrative,“The Dredgeman's Revelation," that could easilystand on its own (and has as a short story in TheNew Yorker). Another sub-plot deals with Kiwi’sabandonment of Swamplandia! for a menial jobin another tourist attraction. Kiwi’s new employer,the World of Darkness, is a cross between Dante’sInferno and the inside of Jonah’s Old Testamentwhale. Here Russell’s sassy prose style here offersa dark satire on theme park kitsch and the haplesstourists who frequent these monuments to tackiness.

As this thumbnail summary makes clear, Swamplandia! is a bit of a compendium of writingstyles. The scaffolding that holds up the book is a first-person narrative in the voice of Ava,who is our main protagonist and the emotional center of the book. But Russell shifts for longstretches into third person while recounting a seriocomic coming-of-age story about Kiwi onthe mainland, and though she uses this storyline to set up some clever symbolic echoes thatmock the rest of her tale, she isn’t quite as convincing here. Like her characters, Russell is ather best when she’s dealing with swamp life, and the forays into the city are more enervatingthan exciting.

Yet this novel holds together surprisingly well despite the sharply contrasting constituentparts. A zany comic energy propels this book in the first third. Magical realism takes overfor the middle third. And a dark horror story threatens to absorb everything in the final third.Yet these counterbalance each other, and a work that could easily come across as a cut-and-paste job achieves something larger and more satisfying.

The book certainly worked wonders for Karen Russell’s career. This debut novel earned herspots on New York magazine’s honor roll of “impressive New Yorkers under the age of 26.and The New Yorker’s “20 under 40” list. For the National Book Foundation, she was one ofthe “5 under 35” honorees. In 2013, she received a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" atthe age of 32. The literary world rarely hands out so many accolades to an author so young,and there’s almost always a backlash down the line to those who see to ride the fast track toauthorial eminence.

For a writer so skilled in moving from comedy to horror to high literary style, the biggestchallenge might simply be deciding which tone and attitude provides her the strongestplatform. In any event, Russell certainly has the talent to survive the prodigy stage. Since thesuccess of Swamplandia!, she has focused on short fiction, and perhaps that will be hermajor focus going forward. But I wouldn’t be surprised if she delivered another great novel—or maybe even two or three.

Ted Gioia writes on music, literature and popular culture. He is the author of ten books. His mostrecent book is How to Listen to Jazz (Basic Books).

Ted Gioia is publishing essays on his50 favorite works of non-realist fictionreleased since 2000. Featured bookswill include works of magical realism,alternative history, sci-fi, horror, andfantasy, as well as mainstream literaryfiction that pushes boundaries andchallenges conventional notions ofverisimilitude.